1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to roof brackets to support load bearing shelves and platforms, and more particularly relates to a roof bracket which can attach to either a member of a roof truss or the surface of the roof itself.
2. Background
There are a number of types of roof brackets which are noted in the prior art, some of which support scaffolds or load bearing shelves. The load bearing shelves can be adapted to support shingles, bricks, roofing materials, or a person who sits on the shelf and applies roofing material. However, none of these devices provide the option of attaching the roof brackets to a roofing truss, before roofing is applied to the truss. Further, none of the prior art roof bracket devices provide an adaptation whereby the roof bracket and the load bearing shelf on it can be braced from below the roof to provide additional support to the structure. Furthermore, none of the prior art roof bracket devices provide the option of attaching to either the roof truss before any roofing material is applied to it, or the roof surface itself after roofing materials such as plywood and shingles have been applied to it.
During the construction of the roof of a building, some of the steps involved include building the structure of the roof using rafters or trusses, then covering the rafters or trusses with a sheathing such as plywood, covering the plywood sheathing with a waterproof material such as tar paper, covering the tar paper with other roof materials such as rolls of asphalt paper, slate or asphalt shingles, sheet metal, or wooden shakes. During each of these stages of building a roof, heavy and bulky roofing materials must be lifted and placed on the often sloping roof so that they can be used over the surface of the roof. These materials can include 4.times.8 or larger sheets of plywood, rolls of tar paper, boxes of nails, nailing equipment such as power nailers and their air and power cords, five (5) gallon or larger buckets of tar or asphalt, heavy bundles of shingles or sheet metal. These materials can be lifted up one piece at a time, but this is time consuming, expensive, and dangerous, since people can suffer back injuries doing this, or have articles roll or fall off the roof and strike a person below the roof. What is preferable is to lift these articles onto the roof using a fork lift, with the materials on a pallet which can be placed on the roof and left there. This is sometimes not possible because of the slope of the roof. If the materials are left on the pallet supported by a forklift, the forklift and possibly a driver are tied up while it is so utilized.
What is needed is a roof mounted bracket from which can be formed a generally horizontal platform on a sloping roof. If this platform is placed near the edge of the roof, a fork lift from ground level can lift materials onto the roof and deposit them there without risk of injury to the workers from lifting, and reduce the risk of materials rolling off the sloped roof, and without the tieing up of a forklift to hold the materials in place.
Since the first material to be lifted onto the roof is sheathing material such as plywood, it is desirable to have the roof mounted support bracket be able to mount onto the rafters or trusses of a roof in order to except pallets of sheathing material. Once the pallets of sheathing material are deposited on the roof mounted support bracket, the sheathing material can be distributed one sheet at a time over the surface of the roof. When the rafters and trusses of the roof are thus covered with sheathing material, a roof mounted support bracket is needed which can be attached to the sloping roof surface rather than to the sloping edge of the rafter or truss. A preferable device would be a roof mounted support bracket which could first be attached to the sloping rafter or truss edge, and then could be remounted to be attached to the sloping roof surface. Since roofing materials can be quite heavy it is also preferred that braces can be placed below the roof which engage the roof mounted support brackets and help support the load of roofing materials on the load bearing shelf of the roof mounted support bracket.
Accordingly it is the object of the present invention to provide a roof mounted support bracket for attaching to a truss member and for supporting a load bearing shelf. It is another object of the invention to provide a roof mounted support bracket which optionally can attach to either a truss member or to a roof surface.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a roof mounted support bracket which provides for engagement with a brace placed below the roof to help support the weight of material on the support bracket and the load bearing shelf.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description as follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.